Toro Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Investors bought 1,176 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 1,709% compared to the typical daily volume of 65 put options.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on TTC. Raymond James lowered their price objective on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. DA Davidson dropped their price objective on shares of Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Northland Capmk raised Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 7th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $89.75.

Institutional Trading of Toro

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of TTC. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the third quarter worth $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. raised its stake in Toro by 6,995.4% in the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,418,000 after acquiring an additional 72,962 shares during the last quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Toro during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,261,000. Point72 DIFC Ltd grew its stake in Toro by 101.6% during the 3rd quarter. Point72 DIFC Ltd now owns 13,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,127,000 after purchasing an additional 6,550 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 294.4% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 24,652 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,975,000 after purchasing an additional 18,401 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Price Performance

NYSE TTC opened at $73.16 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $79.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $82.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.24 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. Toro has a 12-month low of $71.23 and a 12-month high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 31st. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.87%.

Toro announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

About Toro

The Toro Company designs, manufactures, markets, and sells professional turf maintenance equipment and services. It operates through two segments: Professional and Residential. The Professional segment offers turf and landscape equipment products, including sports fields and grounds mowing and maintenance equipment, golf course mowing and maintenance equipment, landscape contractor mowing equipment, landscape creation and renovation equipment, and other maintenance equipment; rental, specialty, and underground construction equipment, such as horizontal directional drills, walk and ride trenchers, stand-on skid steers, vacuum excavators, stump grinders, turf renovation products, asset locators, pipe rehabilitation solutions, materials handling equipment, and other after-market tools; and snow and ice management equipment, such as snowplows, as well as stand-on snow and ice removal equipment, such as snowplow, snow brush, and snow thrower attachments, salt and sand spreaders, and related parts and accessories for light and medium duty trucks, utility task vehicles, skid steers, and front-end loaders.